They were the hands of a worker. A laundress, maybe, or a housekeeper. She always lamented how short and ruddy her fingers were, as she pushed on the emerald and opal rings that she loved to wear. Her knuckles were formidable, and the gold bands had to be slid over them just so. The rest of Maryann's skin was palest white with scatterings of Irish freckles, but her hands were reddened.
Facing a long row of white piano keys split by shadow lines and minor black rectangles, Maryann's hands became muscular, precise tools. She had a finger spread that spanned an octave without strain. Her left hand brought bass chords to life in accurate sync with the melody. And she was able to inject softness, nuance, and emotion along with the emphasis. Her hands were made to speak; they were servants to the spirit of jazz music. She realized this before she was 10 years old, in fact: the tunes of popular American song were destined to pour through her hands as entertainment for others. No need for sheet music; she could hear it and reproduce it. Maryann surrendered to that knowledge, transporting herself to a place of balance and peace whenever she played. Her life beyond the smooth wood box of a piano was often dissonant, as though she repeatedly and suddenly became a stranger in the face of everyday events...but the piano was her harbor.
She would gladly have forfeited attending smalltown parties in her youth, but there was an expectation that she would play for the gatherings, and Maryann was very good at living up to her responsibilities. Small talk made her uneasy, and although she had lifelong female friends who always included her in their fun, Maryann could never shake the feeling of being apart. The call to "Play something for us, Maryann!" was a relief even as it was a nuisance (because the partygoers would inevitably tell her what to play, demandingly, and then only half-listen as their small talk and smoking raved on). In the Northern Lights Class of 1950 yearbook, they nicknamed her "Paderewski".
Her graduation gift from her parents was an extravagance that befitted her nickname: a baby grand piano. Dark sepia wood, with lighter swirls of grain...beyond furniture, it was practically a planet in her parents' modest living room. An anchor in the harbor, you might say. An enticement, even...a plea for this golden only child not to leave.
It didn't work. She departed easily, plunging into the swelter of New York City summer. Maryann's hands ventured to nightclubs on Manhattan's fabled 52nd Street, where larger and even noisier crowds listened as the redhead coaxed the standards to swing and emote. Places like the Hickory House and the Embers, whose names evoked steak and smoke. By day, she was a radio station page, to pay her rent at the YWCA. Her nights glittered and simmered. Maryann found a community of fellow-travelers in the city...players from nowherevilles all over the world, for whom a musical instrument was equally effortless and all-consuming. Their lingua franca was their coolness, their ability to instinctively bend music so that it became something more shining than its original form.
She began dating a fellow-traveler named Bob Burns, late of the storied US Navy Band, a drummer whose conflicts and demons made Maryann's moments of social estrangement seem tame. He burned to play like she did (surname pun ruefully acknowledged), but there were gaps in his groove. Maybe his methodical intellect blocked him from giving over to the art. Bob ached to possess Maryann as his wife, perhaps to absorb some of her light, but ultimately, he snuffed it out with mundane duties. It was the 1950s, and Maryann was well aware of what she was expected to do: make this man a home, give birth to children. Wear an apron and have dinner ready. Their early married life in an urban apartment was not so dull, if the black-and-white photos are to be believed. But Maryann was certainly not sitting in at nightclubs on Wednesdays at midnight, and Bob had become a university student on the GI Bill...living out his own version of what-was-expected.
Bob and Maryann's jazz world must always be viewed through the amber glow of alcohol. It may well have enabled their muses to emerge fully flowered, without inhibitions, but as their marriage encompassed parenthood and salaries, it robbed them of any sense of settled contentment. Bob became bitterly angry, his tirades insensible. When infidelity was added to his list of domestic sins, Maryann scooped up her young children, returned north to her small town of birth, and left New York to him. The baby grand had awaited her in its living room berth, and it slowly reawakened her soul.
I have staccato memories of early childhood which linger far more vividly than most people's. My mother's elusive persona, her tether to a piano while my grandparents guided me through toddlerhood...it's all right at the fringes of my psyche, shards of places and events. Eventually, our family returned triumphantly to New York City, as Maryann got the gig of a lifetime: playing piano every night onstage in a hit Broadway show, Cabaret. Every night, some older woman--my nana, a babysitter--tucked me in while Maryann performed and brought home the bacon. I never minded her absence, but I jealously guarded her presence whenever I got it.
I stlll recall preschool afternoons when she would fill our apartment living room with the sound of the Steinway upright she'd purchased for herself. I stood to the right of her bench, eye-level to the keys, wanting to be as close as possible. I could stand there all day, watching the blur and pause of her hands. The music, I remember, was surprisingly louder from that vantage point, resonating through the wood. The wood itself had a scent, a deep sweetness. I knew, without being told, that my mother was phenomenally talented; that the songs she played were just as good as the jazz LPs in rotation on the stereo in that same room: Count Basie, Marian McPartland, Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver. Maryann's mantra to her children differed from other mothers'; it was "Sssssh. Sssssh. Listen."
As Maryann's hands ranged over the keys, larger-than-life in that proximity, I was inevitably seized with a temptation: to strike a key with my childish index finger. I wanted to be swept up into the music, become part of it, not just her bystander. I could never deny the urge, and soon my hand would approach; my finger would choose a key. Most of the time the note was a lemon against whatever song she was playing. I knew that, could hear the note's high-pitched awfulness...but I would plink it again and again, listening to how it stood out, alone on a rich tapestry of beauty. Maryann did not stop me.
Among my genealogical treasures are the receipts for her baby grand and her Steinway, fluttering pink reminders of her time, her sound, what made her free.
10 February 2010
13 January 2010
O Pioneers
For most of my friends here (whether peers or younger than I), 20 years ago was still a time of carefree youth. Peter and I were among only a handful of people in our group of friends/family who made the decision to marry and procreate whilst in our early 20s. We were the youngest sibs in our families, but we birthed the first grandchild on both sides. Peter was literally fresh out of college...he was by far the first in his class to become a father.
These decisions were not made by us momentously--that is to say, we were still carefree enough to see our marriage and life together as a flow, and we just went with it. We started out with the proverbial nothing, and added to our early days of frugality was the sudden responsibility of caring for my grampy, who came to live with us two months after the wedding. We learned as we went along in every way, because we really didn't know anyone else dealing with the circumstances we faced. Grampy was experiencing physical hardships that required a lot of supervision; Peter had to bathe him and help him get up from a sitting position at times, while I had to cut his nails and hair, clean his dentures, feed him, clothe him, entertain him (a lot of "Golden Girls" and "Murder, She Wrote"), and generally help him understand why our roles were suddenly tipped over after decades of the reverse. His mind was impaired in unpredictable ways--he knew who I was, and who Peter was, but he couldn't recall why he had had to come live with us, and was mortified that his handwriting had been impaired enough that I had to pay his bills for him. I would be writing the check for his Blue Cross payment, and he would be sitting alongside me saying, "Here, now, what are you doing that for??" and I would say, "Grampy, you can't write just yet, remember?"
(As if I knew anything about Blue Cross, back then. Talk about baptism by fire. Don't even get me started about the Medicare snarls, the hospitalizations, the desperate attempts to keep psychotropic drugs off his doctors' prescription pads...)
But let's go to the happy place of that retro era. The place where, at age 25 and juggling this brand-new hybrid household, I was surprised to find myself pregnant. Only surprised, in hindsight, because I'd staved it off so well during my wild college years, yet when Peter and I thought we'd experiment with not staving...well, kerwango. I stood alone in the kitchen with the telltale stick, Pete's laughter echoing on the porch as he left for work, and Grampy still waiting for his breakfast (not to mention, an explanation...that was delicate). I had no other family within a 500-mile radius. In fact, we had only lived in that house--our first real rental--for a month-and-a-half. After getting Grampy situated, I went across the lawn to my next-door neighbor's house. Her name was Fran, and she was a 60-something mom of 4 boys who had the least flappable demeanor you can imagine. An oasis of no-nonsense womanhood, and none too fussy about housework, all of which endeared me to her.
Fran and I sat down at her '50s metal kitchen table and perused the Ellsworth phone book to try and figure out who the OB/GYNs were nowadays. We chose a doctor and I made the appointment right there, on Fran's rotary wall phone. Having Fran's company and advice on that bewildering day was everything. I stumbled home in a daze to call my mom and deal with reality.
No Internets, my pets...we are talking retro days. In my usual way, I obsessed about what the heck was going to happen to my body, myself. Lacking health sites to peruse on a glowing screen late at night, I was left to take long walks to the local bookstore, where I ruminated on all the books on pregnancy and childbirth as I stood in the aisle. This was an extravagant purchase for us back then, so I had to be choosy. Ultimately, I decided on three books:
--Dr. Spock, mais oui (and did that ever get a workout).
--Sheila Kitzinger's Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth--because she had given birth five times without drugs, and she said labor felt like standing in front of an oven door and having sudden whooshes of heat and sensation come over you. Plus, her week-by-week descriptions of gestation were stellar.
--some 1980s-era, first-person motherhood narrative that was like having a knowledgeable older friend whose writing style you liked.
I needed so desperately to know what all of this was going to feel like, what were the potential complications, was I going to be able to breastfeed, and how could I make sure I wouldn't get drugs during labor (in 1989, midwifery and natural childbirth were still not the norm). Those books were companions that I read, reread, and read again for months.
Aside from these concerns, Peter and I were faced with clothing a baby and setting up our household on a single starter-level salary. That was the era when credit cards were fairly easy to come by, so we began our lifelong tango with debt and repayment. Nevertheless, money was still very tight, so we became connoisseurs of rummage and yard sales. Every Thursday we snagged the Ellsworth American and the Bar Harbor Times, heading straight for the classifieds. Our objectives were actually trifold:
--check to see if we could find a better house rental
--check to see if there were any jobs for book editors or writers (ummmm, no)
--review the listings of yard sales
This latter exercise was the sole means by which we became familiar with downeast Maine. Starting out first thing on a Saturday morning (and without GPS), we would clutch a map and compare it to the two-line sales ads, plotting out a logical circuit from one sale to the next. Obviously, we sought sales that specified baby clothes and goods; fortunately, there were many of those. Those early spring forays are burned into my memory...meeting other families, sorting through cardboard boxes or pawing over long tables in a church basement, and assembling everything we could have needed for our baby-to-be. I can still remember where I bought well-loved items that went on to be worn by all four Reifsnyder babies. I was (and am) firmly of the belief that a good hot water washing and drying will take care of almost anything and make it wearable, and most of the sellers had taken good care of the stuff, anyway. Pete and I also benefitted from generous friends and co-workers who shared bags of clothes with us--not just for our first baby, but the ones to follow. We were blessed in every way.
I look back on that era and recall that my overriding emotion was wonderment. Peter and I found ourselves in the land of New, as surely as if we had taken a covered wagon to get there. Behind us were urban childhoods, elite high schools and a prestigious college. I swear to you that neither of us regretted pushing forward into this spousal, parental, semi-rural lifestyle, and though we never discussed it as such, we fashioned our own way of living and parenting that has endured for 20 years.
When Zoë arrived, the light in our lives got brighter. We never stopped venturing out and learning; we just added another passenger who was just as curious as we were. Both Pete and I adapted to baby tasks in that flow-going way, and Zoë helped immensely by being about as even-tempered and manageable as a baby can be.
These decisions were not made by us momentously--that is to say, we were still carefree enough to see our marriage and life together as a flow, and we just went with it. We started out with the proverbial nothing, and added to our early days of frugality was the sudden responsibility of caring for my grampy, who came to live with us two months after the wedding. We learned as we went along in every way, because we really didn't know anyone else dealing with the circumstances we faced. Grampy was experiencing physical hardships that required a lot of supervision; Peter had to bathe him and help him get up from a sitting position at times, while I had to cut his nails and hair, clean his dentures, feed him, clothe him, entertain him (a lot of "Golden Girls" and "Murder, She Wrote"), and generally help him understand why our roles were suddenly tipped over after decades of the reverse. His mind was impaired in unpredictable ways--he knew who I was, and who Peter was, but he couldn't recall why he had had to come live with us, and was mortified that his handwriting had been impaired enough that I had to pay his bills for him. I would be writing the check for his Blue Cross payment, and he would be sitting alongside me saying, "Here, now, what are you doing that for??" and I would say, "Grampy, you can't write just yet, remember?"
(As if I knew anything about Blue Cross, back then. Talk about baptism by fire. Don't even get me started about the Medicare snarls, the hospitalizations, the desperate attempts to keep psychotropic drugs off his doctors' prescription pads...)
But let's go to the happy place of that retro era. The place where, at age 25 and juggling this brand-new hybrid household, I was surprised to find myself pregnant. Only surprised, in hindsight, because I'd staved it off so well during my wild college years, yet when Peter and I thought we'd experiment with not staving...well, kerwango. I stood alone in the kitchen with the telltale stick, Pete's laughter echoing on the porch as he left for work, and Grampy still waiting for his breakfast (not to mention, an explanation...that was delicate). I had no other family within a 500-mile radius. In fact, we had only lived in that house--our first real rental--for a month-and-a-half. After getting Grampy situated, I went across the lawn to my next-door neighbor's house. Her name was Fran, and she was a 60-something mom of 4 boys who had the least flappable demeanor you can imagine. An oasis of no-nonsense womanhood, and none too fussy about housework, all of which endeared me to her.
Fran and I sat down at her '50s metal kitchen table and perused the Ellsworth phone book to try and figure out who the OB/GYNs were nowadays. We chose a doctor and I made the appointment right there, on Fran's rotary wall phone. Having Fran's company and advice on that bewildering day was everything. I stumbled home in a daze to call my mom and deal with reality.
No Internets, my pets...we are talking retro days. In my usual way, I obsessed about what the heck was going to happen to my body, myself. Lacking health sites to peruse on a glowing screen late at night, I was left to take long walks to the local bookstore, where I ruminated on all the books on pregnancy and childbirth as I stood in the aisle. This was an extravagant purchase for us back then, so I had to be choosy. Ultimately, I decided on three books:
--Dr. Spock, mais oui (and did that ever get a workout).
--Sheila Kitzinger's Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth--because she had given birth five times without drugs, and she said labor felt like standing in front of an oven door and having sudden whooshes of heat and sensation come over you. Plus, her week-by-week descriptions of gestation were stellar.
--some 1980s-era, first-person motherhood narrative that was like having a knowledgeable older friend whose writing style you liked.
I needed so desperately to know what all of this was going to feel like, what were the potential complications, was I going to be able to breastfeed, and how could I make sure I wouldn't get drugs during labor (in 1989, midwifery and natural childbirth were still not the norm). Those books were companions that I read, reread, and read again for months.
Aside from these concerns, Peter and I were faced with clothing a baby and setting up our household on a single starter-level salary. That was the era when credit cards were fairly easy to come by, so we began our lifelong tango with debt and repayment. Nevertheless, money was still very tight, so we became connoisseurs of rummage and yard sales. Every Thursday we snagged the Ellsworth American and the Bar Harbor Times, heading straight for the classifieds. Our objectives were actually trifold:
--check to see if we could find a better house rental
--check to see if there were any jobs for book editors or writers (ummmm, no)
--review the listings of yard sales
This latter exercise was the sole means by which we became familiar with downeast Maine. Starting out first thing on a Saturday morning (and without GPS), we would clutch a map and compare it to the two-line sales ads, plotting out a logical circuit from one sale to the next. Obviously, we sought sales that specified baby clothes and goods; fortunately, there were many of those. Those early spring forays are burned into my memory...meeting other families, sorting through cardboard boxes or pawing over long tables in a church basement, and assembling everything we could have needed for our baby-to-be. I can still remember where I bought well-loved items that went on to be worn by all four Reifsnyder babies. I was (and am) firmly of the belief that a good hot water washing and drying will take care of almost anything and make it wearable, and most of the sellers had taken good care of the stuff, anyway. Pete and I also benefitted from generous friends and co-workers who shared bags of clothes with us--not just for our first baby, but the ones to follow. We were blessed in every way.
I look back on that era and recall that my overriding emotion was wonderment. Peter and I found ourselves in the land of New, as surely as if we had taken a covered wagon to get there. Behind us were urban childhoods, elite high schools and a prestigious college. I swear to you that neither of us regretted pushing forward into this spousal, parental, semi-rural lifestyle, and though we never discussed it as such, we fashioned our own way of living and parenting that has endured for 20 years.
When Zoë arrived, the light in our lives got brighter. We never stopped venturing out and learning; we just added another passenger who was just as curious as we were. Both Pete and I adapted to baby tasks in that flow-going way, and Zoë helped immensely by being about as even-tempered and manageable as a baby can be.
08 December 2009
Venite Adoremus
Starting in fourth grade, I spent a lot of time on the altar of my home church. Not as an altar server--sheesh, that was my Holy Grail back then, to wear that puffy white cotton gown-with-undergown and ring the little golden bell. But in the 1970s, girls were not altar servers. Instead, through a turn of events I can no longer remember, I became a lector.
Fourth grade. The same age as my youngest, who still frequently stammers through a sentence with childlike enthusiasm. Somehow, at age 10, I was instilled with the awesome power of the responsorial psalm and expected to deliver the words calmly and understandably. An entire parish lifted its myriad faces to me, awaiting my instructions as to what they would say in response to the interspersed psalm content I had to read, cold, from a big fat ponderous book. Yes, cold--I was handed the text upon arrival each Sunday.
Did I audition for this role? It's lost to the mists. There must have been some kind of try-outs, although knowing my parochial school, it's just as likely I was drafted because of my grades or my aptitude or the suspicion that I'd had "the calling". (Pause to recall the day that a nun told me that. Pause also to recall that I stammered when I answered Sister Maureen with some bland platitude, dancing around saying what I really meant: "Ohhh, I like boys WAY too much for that.")
Lectoring meant that weekly Mass was a must for me, and I didn't get to choose which Mass I was compelled to attend. I had to dress up, and I often used this as an excuse to borrow my mom's wedge-heeled sandals because "nothing I have matches with this skirt, Ma." How I walked across that massive marble-floored stage without wobbling, I do not know. I was shivery inside, and maybe my voice quavered as I intoned the psalm, but the huge silver mic always covered for me and boomed my words out into the massive church hall. (One of those retro-looking mics, rounded silver square with the horizontal cutouts. Ever cool.)
My nerves calmed as my lectoring career went on. One of the greatest gifts I ever got from my tenure at Most Precious Blood School, in fact, is my ability to speak in front of a crowd without hesitating. And here's an incredible true fact: my mom never came to a single Mass where I lectored. She was completely alienated from her faith at that point, and not inclined to use up Sunday leisure time on accompanying me to a service that would distress her. So, while that might seem cold-hearted and dismissive as you ponder it, what it really meant was this: at a young age, I was handed a major weekly responsibility that was mine alone to fulfill. No mom to comfort me if I made a mistake or got nervous...buck up and do it, young Nessa. Say what you will, my mother molded a fiercely independent spirit. For all I know, I advised her not to bother coming anyway.
Mom did, however, attend Midnight Mass with me and my brother, as my other altar-centered stint was the school choir. Those auditions, I do remember. Being in the choir meant everything to me. I strived for it, and each year I fretted that I might mess up my audition and not get in. The choir's base of operations was the Lower Church of Most Precious Blood, home of the infamous and kid-beloved Folk Mass (acoustic guitars! John Denver songs! feel-good liturgy!) The ceiling was lower down there, indeed; the lighting a fascinating peachy beige that warmed me inside. Sliding into the worn wood of those chestnut pews, feeling their grain under my fingertips...I spent hours upon hours there.
Our leader was a modernistic, charismatic young priest named Fr. Rucando. (So modernistic was he that, on Saturdays, you might see him in the neighborhood wearing beige slacks and a brown collared shirt!) Fr. Rucando was as good a music instructor as anyone I have ever seen. He was exacting yet pleasant, knowledgeable but accessible, and I would have probably leapt off a ledge if he told me that was the way to hit a note accurately. Our choir was about 50 kids strong. We rehearsed after school in the Lower Church, preparing for the big debut (either Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday, depending on the season). That debut performance would relocate us, you guessed it, onto the marble floor of the Upper Church's altar. We would line up by height along the length of the altar, so different from the casual weeks we had spent in pews downstairs. Our voices made a blended sound that stunned us: a lofty, soaring, magical hymnfest. Father selected unusual Christmas fare: "We Three Kings," "There's A Star in the East," "O Come O Come Emanuel." The program was always tinged with melancholy, culminating in our much-rehearsed "Silent Night." Fr. Rucando took "Silent Night" very seriously. He derided the way that popular singers dragged out "heavenly peeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEACE," asking us instead to leap carefully between the two segments of the word, according some dignity to the moment and the emotion. Singing to his specifications, I felt as spiritually engaged as could ever be possible. As though I were an instrument to convey important messages. A muse for faith.
Walking to Midnight Mass, my stomach felt jumpy and excitable. Surely the knowledge that presents would soon materialize was part of that; also, dinner was long since digested, so my stomach was a little demanding. But even moreso, I was immersed in the night-ness of it all, and that never ceased to thrill me. The streets of Astoria were dipped in an inky midnight blue, punctuated by the occasional orange streetlight's benevolent glow. As we approached the church, a life-size Nativity was posted at the corner, constructed so that you could walk "into" the manger and feel that much closer to the Christmas miracle. And my mother was walking alongside me, which (independent girl must admit) meant the world to me. When your mother's an accomplished musician, your musical endeavors essentially become offertories.
The choir's repertoire would be sung before the Mass. Then, a great thrill: after the singing, we were herded up the stairs into the choir loft--by far, the coolest place in the whole church. From the bird's-eye vantage point, we watched the Mass so far below. The entire church was luminous from that spot, with vivid poinsettias winking all over the room. Also, every time the presiding priest waved the jangling censer, and its musky sweet incense wafted out, the concentrated scent would wreathe the choir loft with especial intensity. I reveled in its festivity; the censer only appeared for certain services.
Our choir was called upon during the Mass once more, to lead the congregation in "Adeste Fideles". That was fun, because we had not been taught this hymn during the course of our rehearsals--instead, we were expected to pick up the hymnals and deliver it cold. Of course we knew the tune, but the Latin danced on my tongue, a fizzly delight, unfamiliar even as I knew what the lyrics really meant.
On the way home, invariably my family would tease me because I was a little too "into it" as I sang. Moving my head around, keeping time. So sue me; I'm the daughter of musicians, I can't stand still when I perform. I knew they had been watching me, and that's all that mattered. It was my thing, my offering, and they were there.
What awaited us at home was usually not a happy holiday. Christmas brought stark conflicts between the adults in our home. Luckily we had usually freed our presents of their wrappings before then, so at least that part was sacrosanct. And no matter what happened on the 25th and beyond, my Christmas always had its shining, holy introductory eve, festooned in music and hope. And here's a nifty coda about Fr. Rucando: I always went to him for Confession, because he knew me so well. In what was then the new, daring, face-to-face Confessional method, I used to sit with him and seek advice and solace about my turbulent home life. That man never failed to help, a balm to my young spirit. Coupled with the instruction and joy of his musical teachings, I was deeply fortunate to know him when I did.
Fourth grade. The same age as my youngest, who still frequently stammers through a sentence with childlike enthusiasm. Somehow, at age 10, I was instilled with the awesome power of the responsorial psalm and expected to deliver the words calmly and understandably. An entire parish lifted its myriad faces to me, awaiting my instructions as to what they would say in response to the interspersed psalm content I had to read, cold, from a big fat ponderous book. Yes, cold--I was handed the text upon arrival each Sunday.
Did I audition for this role? It's lost to the mists. There must have been some kind of try-outs, although knowing my parochial school, it's just as likely I was drafted because of my grades or my aptitude or the suspicion that I'd had "the calling". (Pause to recall the day that a nun told me that. Pause also to recall that I stammered when I answered Sister Maureen with some bland platitude, dancing around saying what I really meant: "Ohhh, I like boys WAY too much for that.")
Lectoring meant that weekly Mass was a must for me, and I didn't get to choose which Mass I was compelled to attend. I had to dress up, and I often used this as an excuse to borrow my mom's wedge-heeled sandals because "nothing I have matches with this skirt, Ma." How I walked across that massive marble-floored stage without wobbling, I do not know. I was shivery inside, and maybe my voice quavered as I intoned the psalm, but the huge silver mic always covered for me and boomed my words out into the massive church hall. (One of those retro-looking mics, rounded silver square with the horizontal cutouts. Ever cool.)
My nerves calmed as my lectoring career went on. One of the greatest gifts I ever got from my tenure at Most Precious Blood School, in fact, is my ability to speak in front of a crowd without hesitating. And here's an incredible true fact: my mom never came to a single Mass where I lectored. She was completely alienated from her faith at that point, and not inclined to use up Sunday leisure time on accompanying me to a service that would distress her. So, while that might seem cold-hearted and dismissive as you ponder it, what it really meant was this: at a young age, I was handed a major weekly responsibility that was mine alone to fulfill. No mom to comfort me if I made a mistake or got nervous...buck up and do it, young Nessa. Say what you will, my mother molded a fiercely independent spirit. For all I know, I advised her not to bother coming anyway.
Mom did, however, attend Midnight Mass with me and my brother, as my other altar-centered stint was the school choir. Those auditions, I do remember. Being in the choir meant everything to me. I strived for it, and each year I fretted that I might mess up my audition and not get in. The choir's base of operations was the Lower Church of Most Precious Blood, home of the infamous and kid-beloved Folk Mass (acoustic guitars! John Denver songs! feel-good liturgy!) The ceiling was lower down there, indeed; the lighting a fascinating peachy beige that warmed me inside. Sliding into the worn wood of those chestnut pews, feeling their grain under my fingertips...I spent hours upon hours there.
Our leader was a modernistic, charismatic young priest named Fr. Rucando. (So modernistic was he that, on Saturdays, you might see him in the neighborhood wearing beige slacks and a brown collared shirt!) Fr. Rucando was as good a music instructor as anyone I have ever seen. He was exacting yet pleasant, knowledgeable but accessible, and I would have probably leapt off a ledge if he told me that was the way to hit a note accurately. Our choir was about 50 kids strong. We rehearsed after school in the Lower Church, preparing for the big debut (either Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday, depending on the season). That debut performance would relocate us, you guessed it, onto the marble floor of the Upper Church's altar. We would line up by height along the length of the altar, so different from the casual weeks we had spent in pews downstairs. Our voices made a blended sound that stunned us: a lofty, soaring, magical hymnfest. Father selected unusual Christmas fare: "We Three Kings," "There's A Star in the East," "O Come O Come Emanuel." The program was always tinged with melancholy, culminating in our much-rehearsed "Silent Night." Fr. Rucando took "Silent Night" very seriously. He derided the way that popular singers dragged out "heavenly peeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEACE," asking us instead to leap carefully between the two segments of the word, according some dignity to the moment and the emotion. Singing to his specifications, I felt as spiritually engaged as could ever be possible. As though I were an instrument to convey important messages. A muse for faith.
Walking to Midnight Mass, my stomach felt jumpy and excitable. Surely the knowledge that presents would soon materialize was part of that; also, dinner was long since digested, so my stomach was a little demanding. But even moreso, I was immersed in the night-ness of it all, and that never ceased to thrill me. The streets of Astoria were dipped in an inky midnight blue, punctuated by the occasional orange streetlight's benevolent glow. As we approached the church, a life-size Nativity was posted at the corner, constructed so that you could walk "into" the manger and feel that much closer to the Christmas miracle. And my mother was walking alongside me, which (independent girl must admit) meant the world to me. When your mother's an accomplished musician, your musical endeavors essentially become offertories.
The choir's repertoire would be sung before the Mass. Then, a great thrill: after the singing, we were herded up the stairs into the choir loft--by far, the coolest place in the whole church. From the bird's-eye vantage point, we watched the Mass so far below. The entire church was luminous from that spot, with vivid poinsettias winking all over the room. Also, every time the presiding priest waved the jangling censer, and its musky sweet incense wafted out, the concentrated scent would wreathe the choir loft with especial intensity. I reveled in its festivity; the censer only appeared for certain services.
Our choir was called upon during the Mass once more, to lead the congregation in "Adeste Fideles". That was fun, because we had not been taught this hymn during the course of our rehearsals--instead, we were expected to pick up the hymnals and deliver it cold. Of course we knew the tune, but the Latin danced on my tongue, a fizzly delight, unfamiliar even as I knew what the lyrics really meant.
On the way home, invariably my family would tease me because I was a little too "into it" as I sang. Moving my head around, keeping time. So sue me; I'm the daughter of musicians, I can't stand still when I perform. I knew they had been watching me, and that's all that mattered. It was my thing, my offering, and they were there.
What awaited us at home was usually not a happy holiday. Christmas brought stark conflicts between the adults in our home. Luckily we had usually freed our presents of their wrappings before then, so at least that part was sacrosanct. And no matter what happened on the 25th and beyond, my Christmas always had its shining, holy introductory eve, festooned in music and hope. And here's a nifty coda about Fr. Rucando: I always went to him for Confession, because he knew me so well. In what was then the new, daring, face-to-face Confessional method, I used to sit with him and seek advice and solace about my turbulent home life. That man never failed to help, a balm to my young spirit. Coupled with the instruction and joy of his musical teachings, I was deeply fortunate to know him when I did.
29 October 2009
What I did for Brotherly Love
(Man, there's like four entendres in that title.)
This week marks 24 years since I became a phan of Philly. Not the currently ballyhooed team, but the city, as embodied by a gangly and lustful young Quaker. Falling in love with Pete was my first real acquaintance with the City of Brotherly Love, and I, ahem, loved it. Philly may sprawl a little more haphazardly than my Queens home turf, but there's neighborhood vibes abounding. Fantastical stone architecture that screams Cradle of Liberty. The afore-mentioned Quakers, whose faith spoke to me wordlessly right from the start. The Hooters, sonic accompaniment to our romance. The late, lamented Third Street Jazz and Rock, where our mutual adoration of dusty vinyl took root. Driving fast along the Schuylkill while blasting the Nazz. The Franklin Institute. And...cheesesteaks.
Inspired by today's http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/on-the-question-of-cheese-steaks, which seems to get a lot of it wrong, and in honor of 24 adventurous years with Peter, I thought I would share my own personal cheesesteak recipe. I crafted this a few years ago without consulting any cookbooks...it's straight from my sense memories of the amazing taste of D'Allesandro's cheesesteaks (NOT Geno's, puh-leeze). Now, it's not like my marriage needed saving and I brought out the big Philly phood guns to save it. In fact, we weren't even bored with our usual home, well, phare. (End of clever "ph"s.) We were just missing the taste of a Philly cheesesteak, and I thought maybe I could nail it.
Multiple Philly-native Reifsnyders have told me I got it right. Who's to say. I just love eating the danged things.
Mt. Airy Cheesesteaks
Ingredients:
One 16-steak box of frozen Hannaford Sandwich Steaks (or your store's equivalent...see image below)
One 15-oz can of Tomato Sauce (plain, not preseasoned)
One 16-oz container of Fresh Mushrooms
One Onion
Dried Oregano
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Salt, Pepper, Sugar
One 12-oz package Kraft finely shredded Italian-blend Five Cheese (contains provolone, mozzarella, asiago, parmesan and romano)
About 2 cups more of Shredded Mozzarella
NOTE: I never use reduced fat anything, so I don't know what this would taste like with that option.
Package of 6 sub sandwich rolls (aim for something soft, not crusty)
*Serves 6 ravenous Reifsnyders
STEP 1: The sauce
Pour the Tomato Sauce into a saucepan; place on med-low flame. Add a couple of shakes of Oregano, a pinch each of Garlic and Onion Powders, a little Salt and Pepper, and--VERY key--a couple of teaspoons of Sugar. Stir it up and let it simmer on low while you do the rest of the prep.
STEP 2: The meat
In a large bowl, separate the frozen sheets of Steak and break them into pieces. Your hands will be achy-cold. It's a small price to pay. Note: You will NOT be thawing the meat!! It's meant to be cooked frozen.
STEP 3: The veggies
Slice the Mushrooms into a bowl (or buy presliced). Halve the Onion, then cut it into thin half-moon slices; add to the mushrooms.
STEP 4: The cheeses
Combine all Cheeses in an oversized bowl (you'll need double the space in this bowl, because you'll be adding the cooked steak to it soon).
STEP 5: Cook the meat
Preheat a high-sided skillet on med-high (if it's not non-stick, you might add a smidge of cooking oil). Add the frozen Steak pieces after about a minute of preheating. Sauté the pieces, turning over frequently and chopping up as you go. As the steak finally begins to transition away from pinkness, add the Mushrooms and Onions and sauté them along with the steak.
STEP 6: Prep the rolls
Slice open the Rolls and plate them. You want to keep the subs sealed on the bottom, if you can.
STEP 7: Combine meat and cheeses
Once the Steak and Veggies are done to your liking (usually takes ~8 minutes), use a slotted spatula to transfer the mixture into the Cheese bowl. Try to avoid transferring fatty oil as much as you can. You want to do this while the steak is plenty hot. Mix it all together so that the cheeses start to melt and blend thoroughly with the meat.
STEP 8: Assemble the sandwiches
Put an ample amount of the meat-cheese mixture into the split sub. Then, carefully spoon some of the simmered sauce along the top of the meat. This is a trial-and-error thing...you don't want to make an inedibly messy sub, but you need enough so that you get a burst of sauce with every bite.
Press the sandwich together gently. If the rolls are long, cut in half to make it easier to pick up.
NOW EAT!
This week marks 24 years since I became a phan of Philly. Not the currently ballyhooed team, but the city, as embodied by a gangly and lustful young Quaker. Falling in love with Pete was my first real acquaintance with the City of Brotherly Love, and I, ahem, loved it. Philly may sprawl a little more haphazardly than my Queens home turf, but there's neighborhood vibes abounding. Fantastical stone architecture that screams Cradle of Liberty. The afore-mentioned Quakers, whose faith spoke to me wordlessly right from the start. The Hooters, sonic accompaniment to our romance. The late, lamented Third Street Jazz and Rock, where our mutual adoration of dusty vinyl took root. Driving fast along the Schuylkill while blasting the Nazz. The Franklin Institute. And...cheesesteaks.
Inspired by today's http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/on-the-question-of-cheese-steaks, which seems to get a lot of it wrong, and in honor of 24 adventurous years with Peter, I thought I would share my own personal cheesesteak recipe. I crafted this a few years ago without consulting any cookbooks...it's straight from my sense memories of the amazing taste of D'Allesandro's cheesesteaks (NOT Geno's, puh-leeze). Now, it's not like my marriage needed saving and I brought out the big Philly phood guns to save it. In fact, we weren't even bored with our usual home, well, phare. (End of clever "ph"s.) We were just missing the taste of a Philly cheesesteak, and I thought maybe I could nail it.
Multiple Philly-native Reifsnyders have told me I got it right. Who's to say. I just love eating the danged things.
Mt. Airy Cheesesteaks
Ingredients:
One 16-steak box of frozen Hannaford Sandwich Steaks (or your store's equivalent...see image below)
One 15-oz can of Tomato Sauce (plain, not preseasoned)
One 16-oz container of Fresh Mushrooms
One Onion
Dried Oregano
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Salt, Pepper, Sugar
One 12-oz package Kraft finely shredded Italian-blend Five Cheese (contains provolone, mozzarella, asiago, parmesan and romano)
About 2 cups more of Shredded Mozzarella
NOTE: I never use reduced fat anything, so I don't know what this would taste like with that option.
Package of 6 sub sandwich rolls (aim for something soft, not crusty)
*Serves 6 ravenous Reifsnyders
STEP 1: The sauce
Pour the Tomato Sauce into a saucepan; place on med-low flame. Add a couple of shakes of Oregano, a pinch each of Garlic and Onion Powders, a little Salt and Pepper, and--VERY key--a couple of teaspoons of Sugar. Stir it up and let it simmer on low while you do the rest of the prep.
STEP 2: The meat
In a large bowl, separate the frozen sheets of Steak and break them into pieces. Your hands will be achy-cold. It's a small price to pay. Note: You will NOT be thawing the meat!! It's meant to be cooked frozen.
STEP 3: The veggies
Slice the Mushrooms into a bowl (or buy presliced). Halve the Onion, then cut it into thin half-moon slices; add to the mushrooms.
STEP 4: The cheeses
Combine all Cheeses in an oversized bowl (you'll need double the space in this bowl, because you'll be adding the cooked steak to it soon).
STEP 5: Cook the meat
Preheat a high-sided skillet on med-high (if it's not non-stick, you might add a smidge of cooking oil). Add the frozen Steak pieces after about a minute of preheating. Sauté the pieces, turning over frequently and chopping up as you go. As the steak finally begins to transition away from pinkness, add the Mushrooms and Onions and sauté them along with the steak.
STEP 6: Prep the rolls
Slice open the Rolls and plate them. You want to keep the subs sealed on the bottom, if you can.
STEP 7: Combine meat and cheeses
Once the Steak and Veggies are done to your liking (usually takes ~8 minutes), use a slotted spatula to transfer the mixture into the Cheese bowl. Try to avoid transferring fatty oil as much as you can. You want to do this while the steak is plenty hot. Mix it all together so that the cheeses start to melt and blend thoroughly with the meat.
STEP 8: Assemble the sandwiches
Put an ample amount of the meat-cheese mixture into the split sub. Then, carefully spoon some of the simmered sauce along the top of the meat. This is a trial-and-error thing...you don't want to make an inedibly messy sub, but you need enough so that you get a burst of sauce with every bite.
Press the sandwich together gently. If the rolls are long, cut in half to make it easier to pick up.
NOW EAT!
05 October 2009
The viewing
It was a viewing at the funeral home, on a drizzly and chill gray morning. The family walked in nearly on tiptoe, their footfalls further hushed by bland carpeting and sympathetic wallpaper. They were almost comically all-sized, from the eldest sister--equal in height to her mother--to the next in line, whose towering awkwardness mimicked his father's, and then the two youngers, one suddenly a head taller than the other. Semi-formal clothing constrained their movements to jerkiness as they sought to relax in the somber glow of the room.
The room tunneled to an endpoint where their elderly cousin rested, in view, pastel colors all around her. The children did not want to approach the casket, and their parents were not about to insist on it. As they all milled about, a safe distance away, they saw a lone figure approaching by the sprays of flowers. His movements were made tentative by his age and deep sorrow. In front of him, laid out in peace, was his sister, the last direct family member in his line. He had never married; she had never married. For awhile, the children had thought that these two relatives, who welcomed them so fondly with each visit, were another set of grandparents. There had been no need to disavow them of that, back then; the simple mistake brought universal joy.
The family found a semicircle of seats in the room's entryway and sat. A few hushed words were exchanged back and forth, and the younger ones leaned on their parents' jacketed arms. As the weight of minutes passed, and cousin Bill remained near his sister Dottie, the older son suddenly began to weep. Then the older daughter, the younger son, the younger daughter...a chain reaction of raw grief. The mother saw it happen, abashed by the intensity of their mourning. She dispensed hugs to each, stroked their hair, whispered reassurances; their slender shapes were warm in her arms, but disconsolate. A Kleenex box was passed, and the four children's reddened faces were shielded as they tried to stem the tears. How extraordinary, their mother thought, and how foolish that she had not anticipated this emotional surge.
The children cried because they knew, all four of them, what a sibling bond means. How no one will ever know you the way your sibling does. How you will do anything for a sister, a brother. They knew from their parents' conversations all week that Bill had been tasked with making final arrangements for a woman who had once been a girl, whose toys he had shared, whom he'd teased and probably exasperated--he being the youngest. And even from a distance, they could see that the face in the casket was not anything like the person they had known...she was truly gone.
First cousins of Bill and Dottie began to arrive; there were not many of them left. From the entryway, watching her distant relatives greet each other in front of the coffin, the mother saw how much these men and women resembled the previous generation: their parents, her great uncles and aunts. Seeing their faces in profile, eyeglasses glinting in the light, it was uncanny. This branch of the family was slight in stature, and though they wavered and hesitated with age, their pride remained fierce. She was witnessing time, manifested. Her own mother was once one of them.
This was the weekend that her decision to come to Maine, to retrace her mother's path, became right and true and fixed. Her place, her home, her people. How much she had gained...and now, her children, too.
The room tunneled to an endpoint where their elderly cousin rested, in view, pastel colors all around her. The children did not want to approach the casket, and their parents were not about to insist on it. As they all milled about, a safe distance away, they saw a lone figure approaching by the sprays of flowers. His movements were made tentative by his age and deep sorrow. In front of him, laid out in peace, was his sister, the last direct family member in his line. He had never married; she had never married. For awhile, the children had thought that these two relatives, who welcomed them so fondly with each visit, were another set of grandparents. There had been no need to disavow them of that, back then; the simple mistake brought universal joy.
The family found a semicircle of seats in the room's entryway and sat. A few hushed words were exchanged back and forth, and the younger ones leaned on their parents' jacketed arms. As the weight of minutes passed, and cousin Bill remained near his sister Dottie, the older son suddenly began to weep. Then the older daughter, the younger son, the younger daughter...a chain reaction of raw grief. The mother saw it happen, abashed by the intensity of their mourning. She dispensed hugs to each, stroked their hair, whispered reassurances; their slender shapes were warm in her arms, but disconsolate. A Kleenex box was passed, and the four children's reddened faces were shielded as they tried to stem the tears. How extraordinary, their mother thought, and how foolish that she had not anticipated this emotional surge.
The children cried because they knew, all four of them, what a sibling bond means. How no one will ever know you the way your sibling does. How you will do anything for a sister, a brother. They knew from their parents' conversations all week that Bill had been tasked with making final arrangements for a woman who had once been a girl, whose toys he had shared, whom he'd teased and probably exasperated--he being the youngest. And even from a distance, they could see that the face in the casket was not anything like the person they had known...she was truly gone.
First cousins of Bill and Dottie began to arrive; there were not many of them left. From the entryway, watching her distant relatives greet each other in front of the coffin, the mother saw how much these men and women resembled the previous generation: their parents, her great uncles and aunts. Seeing their faces in profile, eyeglasses glinting in the light, it was uncanny. This branch of the family was slight in stature, and though they wavered and hesitated with age, their pride remained fierce. She was witnessing time, manifested. Her own mother was once one of them.
This was the weekend that her decision to come to Maine, to retrace her mother's path, became right and true and fixed. Her place, her home, her people. How much she had gained...and now, her children, too.
08 June 2009
"You should write a book."
The year that I lived with my grandparents, age 8, I was given my first-ever weekly allowance. There really wouldn't have been any reason for me to get $1 a week back home in Queens, because I couldn't go shopping alone in the big city. But in Millinocket, Maine, I was free to walk from our house to the compact district known as "down street." I can still remember the sweaty feel of the dollar bill (or two, or three) that lay folded inside my pocket. The greeny scent that my hand carried when I brought it back upwards. And the planning, my thoughts of what-to-buy-this-time following the rhythmic pattern of my feet on the sidewalk.
At Newberry's, I'd become attached to series-type books like Trixie Belden, and I was always up for paper dolls or junk jewelry. I loved Barbies and coloring books and even office supplies (so I could pretend to be a secretary, like my mom). As I think back now, I can't recall when the seismic shift in my priorities took place...but there was, indeed, a climactic point in that third-grade year when it dawned on me that my life's ambition was to be an author. And immediately connected to that realization was a new use for my allowance money: now, I'd stride past Newberry's towards a pharmacy/stationer's called The Big L, because they had the best display of school supplies in town. Fingering the bills in my pocket, I'd deliberate in that aisle over binders, looseleaf, and pencils. The tools for this trade had to be just right. I craved the most inspiring blank piece of lined paper I could obtain, and I wanted the binder that encased it to be a heady combo of workmanlike and appealing. It had to feel right in my hands.
Once home, I would snap open the silver rings of the binder with care, slide the looseleaf sheets out of the plastic, and thread those three rings with the white poundage of possibility. And after this meticulous ceremony, I promise you, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I spent hours alone in my playroom writing, while hours flew past like a time-lapse film where the sun arcs over the house...morning, to day, to evening. My pencil penmanship on the lines smoothly conveyed my imagined stories, without much hesitation. Adult Nessa will tell you: that was magic.
Last weekend I was brought back to these third-grade reveries with a jolt. My kids wanted to stop at the B. Dalton bookstore, and I wandered in with them. They fanned out to their favorite spots, and I looked around aimlessly. Spreading before me, coming into collective focus, were piles and piles of remaindered, unwanted books...all colors and shapes, all topics and themes, all meticulously designed and hopeful. Some agent sold them, some editor bought them, and now some publishing house was whapping its forehead over the wastefulness of these paper-hogging tomes (if not dropping to its knees in the worst economy ever for the printed word). Of course, my heart sank for the writers who believed that people would eagerly read their stories, even as I experienced my familiar clanging jealousy that these authors got published. (Cue the moment where I berate myself for failing to achieve what I set out to do as a girl...the self-flagellation that ensues at every bookstore I enter.)
I lingered for a time at the young-adult section, the genre I settled upon decades ago as my writerly quarry. Twilight-inspired novels sprouted all over those shelves like some out-of-control black rosebush. Alongside the vamps and virgins, I spied another genre: books that centered on Internet chats, texting, and other clever communication devices of this age we live in. Not something I can imagine penning, even though I'm as much a net-izen as anyone. And I'm not a supernaturalist, either.
I veered away from YA, past manga abounding (my daughter's realm), and caught up with Willis reading a guidebook about insects. (He had seen a massive one the night before and was intently discerning what it was.) He sat bathed in a bright overhead light, and I sat next to him. I doubt he even recalls what I said--he was pretty engrossed in the insect manual--but I was overwhelmed, and had to voice what I was thinking to someone.
"Willis, I just realized..." My voice weakened, but then I said it. "When I was a little girl, you know, I decided I was going to write books someday. And just now, looking at all these books in this store that no one's gonna buy...you know, I have to accept...that is not going to happen."
He didn't say anything, but I went on. "People are always telling me, 'you should write a book,' and that's really wonderful of them, but there aren't ever going to be enough people who would want to read anything I'd write." There was this weird breathless feeling in my chest: part lifting of burden, and part airlessness left behind because I'd let go of something that had always felt so hopeful and pure and true. Oddly for me, I didn't cry. I just felt transformed, desolated.
I know my friends' intentions are supportive and honest when they say that I should write a book. I love them for it, and I wish I could believe what they believe. But adding to that sea of remainders...even being considered worthy enough to maybe join that sea of remainders...my childhood dream seems like a shedded carapace, and the me that has been inside it is tender, emerged, older and wiser.
I'm not saying I'll never be a writer...that's not my point. (I can't not write. It's breath to me.) It is my original childhood vision that has altered: that clutching of a book in my hands that has my name on the cover and my words arranged in orderly font, line after line, on an enviable thick block of pages. It feels yesterday, and wanting it hurts too much in the face of reality.
At Newberry's, I'd become attached to series-type books like Trixie Belden, and I was always up for paper dolls or junk jewelry. I loved Barbies and coloring books and even office supplies (so I could pretend to be a secretary, like my mom). As I think back now, I can't recall when the seismic shift in my priorities took place...but there was, indeed, a climactic point in that third-grade year when it dawned on me that my life's ambition was to be an author. And immediately connected to that realization was a new use for my allowance money: now, I'd stride past Newberry's towards a pharmacy/stationer's called The Big L, because they had the best display of school supplies in town. Fingering the bills in my pocket, I'd deliberate in that aisle over binders, looseleaf, and pencils. The tools for this trade had to be just right. I craved the most inspiring blank piece of lined paper I could obtain, and I wanted the binder that encased it to be a heady combo of workmanlike and appealing. It had to feel right in my hands.
Once home, I would snap open the silver rings of the binder with care, slide the looseleaf sheets out of the plastic, and thread those three rings with the white poundage of possibility. And after this meticulous ceremony, I promise you, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I spent hours alone in my playroom writing, while hours flew past like a time-lapse film where the sun arcs over the house...morning, to day, to evening. My pencil penmanship on the lines smoothly conveyed my imagined stories, without much hesitation. Adult Nessa will tell you: that was magic.
Last weekend I was brought back to these third-grade reveries with a jolt. My kids wanted to stop at the B. Dalton bookstore, and I wandered in with them. They fanned out to their favorite spots, and I looked around aimlessly. Spreading before me, coming into collective focus, were piles and piles of remaindered, unwanted books...all colors and shapes, all topics and themes, all meticulously designed and hopeful. Some agent sold them, some editor bought them, and now some publishing house was whapping its forehead over the wastefulness of these paper-hogging tomes (if not dropping to its knees in the worst economy ever for the printed word). Of course, my heart sank for the writers who believed that people would eagerly read their stories, even as I experienced my familiar clanging jealousy that these authors got published. (Cue the moment where I berate myself for failing to achieve what I set out to do as a girl...the self-flagellation that ensues at every bookstore I enter.)
I lingered for a time at the young-adult section, the genre I settled upon decades ago as my writerly quarry. Twilight-inspired novels sprouted all over those shelves like some out-of-control black rosebush. Alongside the vamps and virgins, I spied another genre: books that centered on Internet chats, texting, and other clever communication devices of this age we live in. Not something I can imagine penning, even though I'm as much a net-izen as anyone. And I'm not a supernaturalist, either.
I veered away from YA, past manga abounding (my daughter's realm), and caught up with Willis reading a guidebook about insects. (He had seen a massive one the night before and was intently discerning what it was.) He sat bathed in a bright overhead light, and I sat next to him. I doubt he even recalls what I said--he was pretty engrossed in the insect manual--but I was overwhelmed, and had to voice what I was thinking to someone.
"Willis, I just realized..." My voice weakened, but then I said it. "When I was a little girl, you know, I decided I was going to write books someday. And just now, looking at all these books in this store that no one's gonna buy...you know, I have to accept...that is not going to happen."
He didn't say anything, but I went on. "People are always telling me, 'you should write a book,' and that's really wonderful of them, but there aren't ever going to be enough people who would want to read anything I'd write." There was this weird breathless feeling in my chest: part lifting of burden, and part airlessness left behind because I'd let go of something that had always felt so hopeful and pure and true. Oddly for me, I didn't cry. I just felt transformed, desolated.
I know my friends' intentions are supportive and honest when they say that I should write a book. I love them for it, and I wish I could believe what they believe. But adding to that sea of remainders...even being considered worthy enough to maybe join that sea of remainders...my childhood dream seems like a shedded carapace, and the me that has been inside it is tender, emerged, older and wiser.
I'm not saying I'll never be a writer...that's not my point. (I can't not write. It's breath to me.) It is my original childhood vision that has altered: that clutching of a book in my hands that has my name on the cover and my words arranged in orderly font, line after line, on an enviable thick block of pages. It feels yesterday, and wanting it hurts too much in the face of reality.
16 March 2009
Ask Des and Lyd
Ask your kids. Share! Today!
Desmond, age 9, and Lydia, age 10, say...
1. What is something Mumma always says to you?
D: Ummmm....hmmmmm...I dunno. "Hi."
L: "Do your homework!"
2. What makes Mumma happy?
D: When I do my homework.
L: Listening to old records.
3. What makes Mumma sad?
D: Watching TV. [I think he means, him watching TV, not me sitting there and blubbering. But who's to say.]
L: If someone in her family dies.
4. What does your Mumma do that makes you laugh?
D: I don't think I remember anything.
L: Comment on weird things.
5. What was your Mumma like as a child?
D: I don't know.
L: No glasses, short...that's all I can think of.
6. How old is your Mumma?
D: 44...?
L: 45!
7. How tall is your Mumma?
D: 53 inches. [Yeaah.]
L: 5 foot 2? [Still, no.]
8. What is her favorite thing to do?
D: Make quilts.
L: Lie around and sleep, and watch "General Hospital."
9. What does your Mumma do when you're not around?
D: Talk to adults.
L: Sleep. And work.
10. If your Mumma becomes famous, what will it be for?
D: Making quilts.
L: For being a great genealogist, I think.
11. What is your Mumma really good at?
D: Cooking.
L: Cooking dinner.
12. What is your Mumma not very good at?
D: Chopping down trees.
L: Playing sports.
13. What does your Mumma do for a job?
D: Work at a store.
L: Work at a fabric and scrapbooking store.
14. What is your Mumma's favorite food?
D: Pizza.
L: Yodels and tea.
15.What makes you proud of your Mumma?
D: There's so many things!
L: Proud that she's my mom.
16. If your Mumma were a cartoon character, who would she be?
D: Truffles from "Chowder."
L: Truffles, because she's cranky and old--sorry to say that--and she has glasses.
17. What do you and your Mumma do together?
D: Make scrapbooks.
L: Look up the past of our ancestors.
18. How are you and your Mumma the same?
D: We both watch TV...
L: We're both girls...and I have the same eye color as her.
19. How are you and your Mumma different?
D: She makes dinner.
L: I don't wear glasses, but she does.
20. How do you know your Mumma loves you?
D: Because she hugs me.
L: Because I am her child and she loves me very much.
21. Where is your Mumma's favorite place?
D: Bowdoin.
L: New Jersey or New York because her brother lives there and she used to.
Desmond, age 9, and Lydia, age 10, say...
1. What is something Mumma always says to you?
D: Ummmm....hmmmmm...I dunno. "Hi."
L: "Do your homework!"
2. What makes Mumma happy?
D: When I do my homework.
L: Listening to old records.
3. What makes Mumma sad?
D: Watching TV. [I think he means, him watching TV, not me sitting there and blubbering. But who's to say.]
L: If someone in her family dies.
4. What does your Mumma do that makes you laugh?
D: I don't think I remember anything.
L: Comment on weird things.
5. What was your Mumma like as a child?
D: I don't know.
L: No glasses, short...that's all I can think of.
6. How old is your Mumma?
D: 44...?
L: 45!
7. How tall is your Mumma?
D: 53 inches. [Yeaah.]
L: 5 foot 2? [Still, no.]
8. What is her favorite thing to do?
D: Make quilts.
L: Lie around and sleep, and watch "General Hospital."
9. What does your Mumma do when you're not around?
D: Talk to adults.
L: Sleep. And work.
10. If your Mumma becomes famous, what will it be for?
D: Making quilts.
L: For being a great genealogist, I think.
11. What is your Mumma really good at?
D: Cooking.
L: Cooking dinner.
12. What is your Mumma not very good at?
D: Chopping down trees.
L: Playing sports.
13. What does your Mumma do for a job?
D: Work at a store.
L: Work at a fabric and scrapbooking store.
14. What is your Mumma's favorite food?
D: Pizza.
L: Yodels and tea.
15.What makes you proud of your Mumma?
D: There's so many things!
L: Proud that she's my mom.
16. If your Mumma were a cartoon character, who would she be?
D: Truffles from "Chowder."
L: Truffles, because she's cranky and old--sorry to say that--and she has glasses.
17. What do you and your Mumma do together?
D: Make scrapbooks.
L: Look up the past of our ancestors.
18. How are you and your Mumma the same?
D: We both watch TV...
L: We're both girls...and I have the same eye color as her.
19. How are you and your Mumma different?
D: She makes dinner.
L: I don't wear glasses, but she does.
20. How do you know your Mumma loves you?
D: Because she hugs me.
L: Because I am her child and she loves me very much.
21. Where is your Mumma's favorite place?
D: Bowdoin.
L: New Jersey or New York because her brother lives there and she used to.
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